Menu

Install Map Updates On Old Garmin GPS Nuvi 360

I was cleaning up my closet and found an old Garmin Nuvi 360 GPS that used years ago. Before I bought an iPhone, it had been a very useful tool for our travels. To my surprise, it still runs smoothly the moment I turned it on. So I decided to spend some time to bring my old friend back in life. Maybe put back in my car as a backup when cell phone signals are low.

The only problem with this old buddy is that the map is dated back in 2009 (I know, it was a long time ago). So there are some updates to do. I am going to show you what I did.

Step 1: Update the Firmware

Garmin had some firmware updates (Version 5.20) dated back in 2010. My previous firmware version is 3.4, so it is good to update.

Step 2: Update the Map in SD Card

The newer maps are great except one problem: they are too big. The old Nuvi 360 has only 2GB internal storage and does not support SDHC, which means it can only support up to 2GB external SD card. Since the internal storage also has many system files that can not be reduced. The only choice is to find a relative small map that can fit in 2GB space. Because of this, we could not install the latest 2015.10 map (2.2GB) and had to choose 2013.40 version.

The installation is actually simple if you have the right map files available (needs to be unlocked version). For example, the one I listed above in the Baidu Cloud works great. Othersie, you would need an unlock key from the map provider.

Download the “gmapsupp.img” file into the SD card. Make sure to change the SD card name to “Garmin” and create a sub-directory also called “Garmin”. Put the IMG file into the directory created. So it would look like:

j:\Garmin\gmapsupp.img

Then change the original map in Garmin internal storage “gmapprom.img” to some other file name such as “gmapprom.img.old”. I would recommend keep the original file just in case it doesn’t work and you have something to fall back to.

After this, you can disconnect the GPS and it would reboot with the updated map file in the SD card.